


Chekhov's Gun

by malapropism



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Fake Marriage, Fake Marriage Real Sad, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Multi, POV Sam Wilson, Past Torture/Abuse (references), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Unresolved Relationships, What Happens In Vegas Stays In Vegas Until You Blow It Up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 04:23:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7876183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malapropism/pseuds/malapropism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you put a gun in the first act, it better damn go off in the third.</p><p>Or, the fake marriage fic in which everyone's sad about everything, and there's a cross-country roadtrip, dubious decisions in Las Vegas, a radioactive HYDRA hidey-hole, multi-directional pining, spies being spies, two century's worth of unresolved emotional trauma, a bunch of explosions (literal and figurative), and too many betrayals to count.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chekhov's Gun

**Author's Note:**

> If you’ve been [playing along on Tumblr](ababelofprose.tumblr.com/tagged/fake-marriage-real-sad), you know that this is the “fake marriage real sad” fic. Let me emphasize the “real sad” part, which doesn’t really kick in ‘til Act Three, but is definitely a thing. This first chapter, for the most part, sets the stage and introduces our players; Act Two is roadtrip shenanigans, Vegas-style antics, and my weird spin on the fake marriage trope. Updates are forthcoming but I can’t give you a precise date; stay in touch with me [on Tumblr](ababelofprose.tumblr.com) for generally incoherent status updates. Tags will be added with each chapter. In subsequent updates, potentially triggering material will be tagged but also more extensively warned in a spoilery end note.
> 
> Also, as it says on the tin: this is a Sam/Bucky fic, although there’s multidirectional pining, vague background pairings, and references to other long-lost loves. The Sam/Bucky element picks up in Act Two. I've added a couple tags to try and clear this up, but also, it'll explain itself over time.
> 
> I literally cannot commend [noiselesspatientspider](https://archiveofourown.org/users/noiselesspatientspider) enough. They beta’d this draft through two rounds and saved y’all from a truly distressing amount of italics. All remaining mistakes and melodramatic flourishes are entirely on me. I also owe thanks to everyone on Tumblr who put up with me over the last few months as I drug my feet on this. Thanks, friends – and I hope this doesn’t disappoint.

ACT ONE

 

“One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn’t going to go off. It’s wrong to make promises you don’t mean to keep.”

\- Anton Chekhov, letter to Aleksandr Semenovich Lazarev (pseudonym of A.S. Gruzinsky), 1 November 1889.

 

* * *

 

The first thing you’ve got to know about Sam Wilson is that he knows how to tell a damn fine story.

 

* * *

 

_MANHATTAN_

_JUNE 2014_

 

It’s been nearly two months since the Winter Soldier came in from the cold and over a month since Sam came to visit – “Just for the weekend,” he had said as Steve swept him into a back-breaking embrace, so much for _that_ – and Sam still hasn’t been alone with Barnes for more than five minutes. Steve sticks to Barnes’ side like a very large, very blond, very heroic shadow, and for a while it was kind of cute but it’s starting to get a little creepy. Sam can’t be positive but he’s pretty sure that Steve hasn’t blinked in weeks, let alone gotten a full night’s rest.

To be fair, Barnes could probably disappear in the literal blink of an eye, taking out a TAC team or two for good measure, so maybe some of Steve’s paranoia isn’t entirely unwarranted. 

But here’s the thing: Barnes hasn’t left yet. And if he hasn’t left by now, it’s because he wants to be here, and that’s got to mean something.

Sam tries to point this out to Steve once. It doesn’t go well. Apparently, Steve has some kind of selective hearing when it comes to Barnes. You could be talking on the other side of Manhattan, and the minute you say _Barnes_ , Steve is hurtling towards you at the speed of light. But if you try to sit the guy down and engage him in a serious conversation about how Barnes is doing, all he seems to hear is a litany of things he ought to feel guilty about. Sam isn’t sure if that’s a 1930s thing – after all, the Great Depression really did a number on the country – or just a Steve Rogers thing, or maybe a little of both, but damn. It’s exhausting.

Back to the story. It’s almost May and they’re sitting around Steve’s apartment – which Sam hates, because it’s completely devoid of personal artifacts, and the monochromatic furniture provided by Pepper Potts’ team of German interior designers is weirdly pointy – and they’re playing Endless Ocean.

It turns out that Steve Rogers loves video games, and once Sam finally weaned him off Mario Kart, Endless Ocean became his obsession du jour. You’d think a guy who spent the better part of the twentieth century on ice wouldn’t be so into underwater exploration, even of the animated variety, but you’d be wrong. Sam figures this is just another form of self-excoriation for Steve. He’s tried to get Steve to quit beating himself up for every single tragedy in recorded history, but that always proves to be an exercise in futility. Sam knows when to give up the ghost, unlike some people.

And hey, maybe the guy just really likes swimming with the dolphins. 

Anyways. So they’re looking for sunken treasure and Barnes is back upstairs for a sleep study. Sam is trying to explain to Steve that it’s a good thing that Barnes could have broken out and broken their necks if he’d wanted to, because it means he is choosing to stay and, you know, not murder them in their sleep. An off-brand Enya is singing weepily in the background and a vein is popping off Steve’s forehead. Because clearly, Steve’s brain has translated Sam’s perfectly logical and downright insightful words into _BUCKY COULD LEAVE BUCKY COULD LEAVE BUCKY COULD LEAVE_. Sam tries to talk him down – “No, listen, it’s a good thing, hang on, there is no need to literally run through a wall, he is fine, he’s safe!” – but Steve isn’t listening. Steve is jumping to his feet and knocking over the sofa in the process, and the force of it throws Sam onto the floor. He lands with a _thud_ , but Steve doesn’t notice. He is crushing the Wii controller in his hand, that desperate gleam fever-bright in his eye, and he is tearing the emergency exit door off its hinges. He is sprinting up seventeen flights of stairs, and he’s probably storming the sleep lab at this very moment, and he’s undoubtedly barreling through that door, too. He is certainly terrifying the poor nurse technician, shouting “BUCKY ARE YOU OKAY DON’T LEAVE I’M HERE I GOT YOU.”

Of course, Sam doesn’t see any of that, on account of not being turbo-charged and thus having to dust himself off and wait for the elevator like a normal human being, but he catches the aftermath. Steve, bright red from embarrassment and shame and guilt, always the guilt with this guy. Nurse technician, passed out on the floor and likely in need of some extensive therapy. Barnes, silent and staring, as always. 

Sam can’t help but empathize with the nurse technician, to tell you the honest truth. The sight of Captain America bursting through a door, yelling about his long-lost war buddy had freaked him out the first, oh, four or five times. Eventually, it just becomes the routine. 

> See also: Steve’s habit of standing guard with his ear pressed to the bathroom door whenever Barnes takes one of his interminably long showers. (In the interest of his own sanity, Sam doesn’t allow himself to consider what else Steve listens in on, but well. What do _you_ think.)

And look, Sam gets it. He knows what it’s like to be waiting for the world to end. He knows what it’s like to be certain that if you close your eyes for just a second, you’ll miss something you can’t afford to miss. Hell, there have been times in his life when the people who loved him wouldn’t have trusted him with a pair of dull scissors, and he hadn’t washed up on the other side of a century’s worth of misery. He gets it, as much as anyone can, and he can see that Steve is trying. So he doesn’t say anything when he catches Steve following Barnes around like a very muscular, very neurotic guard dog, although privately he thinks it’s a real shame Steve’s accelerated metabolism chews up any and all anti-anxiety medications. Because if there’s a guy who could benefit from a little pharmaceutical zen, it’s Steve Fucking Rogers.

Sam also doesn’t say anything when he notices the way Steve looks at Barnes: like the world’s axis is in that man’s spine, like everything turns on him, like he’s the beating heart of the whole damn universe. And if Sam’s chest tightens, if something wet gets caught in his throat, to see Steve pick up the pieces of a life Sam’s got no part in, he tries not to think about it.

So Steve dogs Barnes’ every step, which doesn’t seem to faze Barnes in the least. Sam imagines that the Winter Soldier got pretty used to being watched over the years. Sam keeps this observation to himself because Steve’d probably implode if he thought he was even accidentally reminding Barnes of HYDRA or the Red Room or any of those assholes. Plus, Barnes doesn’t seem to care if Steve follows him around like a nervous golden retriever, so Sam mostly leaves them to it. 

Long story short, Sam’s never had much cause to get to know Barnes. Not until they drove a beat-up, dust-red Honda Accord thirty-seven hours cross-country to a shitty wedding chapel in Las Vegas. So that they could save the world.

Again.

 

* * *

 

Sam would be the first to tell you that this was a terrible idea from the get-go, because no one was going to believe that he and Barnes were distantly acquainted, let alone married. And in love. 

If they amped up the sexual tension, they could maybe pass for sworn enemies in a shitty summer blockbuster. But to date, their longest conversation had been about a water outage at Stark’s tower. (An unfortunate hazard of living with an eccentric billionaire whose idea of a normal Tuesday includes a fuck ton of explosives: sometimes the building’s water supply has to be diverted.) A disgruntled Barnes had emerged in a towel, his hair still sudsy with shampoo, to register his dissatisfaction with whoever happened to be nearby. That dubious honor had fallen to Sam, who was waiting for Steve get ready for a run. 

Even that exchange consisted mostly of a couple prolonged silences, a few grunts of complaint (courtesy of Barnes), and one blankly received joke about erotic thriller tropes (Sam Wilson is here all month, ladies and gentlemen and mid-century modern human experiments!).

> And yes, before you even ask: yeah, Sam totally checked Barnes out. He’s a mere mortal, after all, and he’s got eyes. Barnes has a genuinely concerning lack of regard for conventional norms about personal privacy and, you know, clothes. Which someone should really discuss with him in a therapeutic context, for sure. But that someone isn’t going to be Sam, because he’s not the guy’s doctor. So yeah. Barnes is totally ripped and Sam’s totally cool with it.
> 
> Maybe they’ve got the whole homoerotic subtext thing down after all.

From what Sam’s observed, Barnes isn’t particularly chatty with anyone, even Steve. The two of them seem to communicate mostly in a familiar dialect of raised eyebrows and shrugged shoulders, and it’s unclear how much of that Barnes even registers. Steve does most of the talking and he peppers their “conversations” with references to the old Brooklyn – which Sam privately thinks of as the Mesozoic Era, a joke he plans to deploy as soon as socially acceptable. Barnes receives all of this impassively. Occasionally, if strictly necessary, he offers up a sentence or two, cobbled out of monosyllables in a hollow voice that makes Steve wince when he thinks no one is watching.

In those early days, though, Barnes watches Steve a lot, and it’s like he can’t be certain that Steve’ll still be there if he looks away for too long. He watches Steve like he doesn’t want Steve to catch him at it. Like a spy, or a man in love.

Meanwhile, Barnes seems to regard Sam about the way you’d appraise a potted plant at someone else’s apartment: decorative, at best, but mostly just something to step around on your way to the kitchen.

Of course, Barnes can speak when he’s so inclined. He spent those first weeks in Manhattan undergoing a battery of medical examinations, all of which Steve vigorously (but unsuccessfully) protested. As soon as the doctors would allow it, Natasha spent six hours debriefing Barnes on HYDRA’s global activities. She promptly disappeared for eleven days. When she returned, Steve demanded to know where she had been, who she was reporting to, who knew that Barnes was back. She offered a thin smile by way of reply. 

After almost three weeks, the medical team – an internationally sourced group of experts, assembled by Stark and hogtied by non-disclosure agreements – offered up their assessment of the Winter Soldier. Sam had sat next to Steve when they made their reports.

Physically, he seems to be… _fine_ is not the right word, of course. Most of his scars run so deep you can’t see them, but you’ve got to know they’re there. Horrifically, “in working order” is probably the best way to put it, although a phrase like that’ll make Captain America see red.

He _works_ , but he is not necessarily whole or well. One doctor reported on Barnes’ refusal to report his level of pain. By monitoring his brain activity and other physical responses, they had determined that he could feel pain, but when asked to rank it on a scale of one to ten, he was stone-faced. MRIs and CAT scans and x-rays revealed a body that has been rearranged over the years, in the name of brutal efficiency and certainly some sadistic curiosity: some things were not where they should be, some were not there at all, and there was so much metal where there should have been skin and bone. 

Mentally, emotionally, psychologically: well, that’s another story. Barnes’ memories of the war and his life before it are patchy, full of static and not to be trusted. He refuses to discuss the memories (or their absence). The psychologist who tried to probe him further on the subject managed to escape (relatively) unharmed. He received a generous severance package, along with a not-so-subtle reminder from Stark’s lawyers about the terms of his NDA. After that, the medical team instituted a blanket policy: no questions about life before 1945. The patient’s life begins where Bucky’s ended. 

(The doctors refer to Barnes as _the patient_. Steve still calls him _Bucky_ and it doesn’t seem to bother Barnes. But then again, nothing does: he answers the doctors’ questions dispassionately, he cooperates with their requests to tense that muscle and stretch this one, he takes deep breaths on command. He draws Natasha pictures of HYDRA bases in Tajikistan and Sokovia and Eritrea. He lets Stark crack open the control panel on his arm. He answers to whatever they call him, which is usually _Sergeant Barnes_ – to his face, anyway. Sam knows that some of the doctors call him other things when they think no one is listening – when they think no one cares. Natasha speaks to him mostly in Russian, and Sam isn’t sure what she calls him. He isn’t sure what she thinks of him at all. She just arranges her lips like one of Picasso’s line drawings and whispers to him a rush of consonants before running off to parts unknown. Sam doesn’t call him anything but always thinks of him as _Barnes_. Steve says _Bucky_ like it’s his own damn shibboleth. Like it’s his own damn penance.)

The doctors spend a lot of time talking about the amnesia, those little lacunae of lost time, and Sam wonders if that’s why Barnes had nearly attacked the psychologist. Maybe he remembers less than they think, less than Steve hopes. He’s seen this before. Veterans come home with PTSD and can’t remember where they got their coffee in the morning, so it feels like they’re running the desert without a map. Can’t remember where they recognize that guy’s face from, and the familiarity becomes a taunting reminder of what they have lost, becomes a threat to their self-certainty. Sam’s seen grown men and women cry and scream and break things because they forgot their own phone number. In war, there is only war, and when you come home, there is sometimes nothing. And whether you know him as Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th and the Howling Commandos, Captain America’s right-hand man and the country’s longest-serving prisoner of war, or as the Winter Soldier, a Soviet nightmare and HYDRA’s deadliest weapon, you cannot deny that he has been at war for a long, long time. 

The doctors have a few theories about what triggers the amnesia. It’s not just the past that’s gone: sometimes it catches up to the present, and Barnes’ll end up three floors away from the apartment he shares with Steve, blank-eyed and lost. But the doctors can’t say why, other than to point out the obvious: There has been trauma. There has been injury. There has been damage. There has been pain.

The brain rewrites itself under duress and around damage. The body tries to heal up the holes. When there is an infection the body cannot heal at the site of the wound. When there is a reminder the brain splits open at the site of the wound. Sometimes you survive and sometimes you get caught in the thresher, your body ripped open, your brain ripped open. You rip yourself open. Poke at the wound, prod at the wound. Carry bacteria to the site of the wound. Pick at the opening so the scar cannot heal over. The difference between a scar and a blister is what is underneath: tough thick tissue, stronger than before, stronger for its remaking, or something that threatens to erupt.

Sam knows this kind of damage; he knows this kind of pain. He’s been through this before and it feels a lot like the moment before impact, when your heart’s in your threat and your skin’s on fire. Adrenaline keeps the heart pumping, keeps the wound fresh. Maybe it’s not science but it’s something, it’s something. 

There are so many questions and the doctors have so few answers, and that doesn’t surprise Sam very much. There’s no precedent for this kind of trauma. There’s no precedent for this kind of survival. This man – and he is a man; Sam has seen the bloodwork, he has seen the heart trace, he has read the charts – is alive and he shouldn’t be. He is alive and he can’t be. He has a heart and it is like any other heart. Breathless blood passing through the superior vena cava, through the right atrium, through the tricuspid valve, into the right ventricle, through the pulmonary valve, into the pulmonary trunk. Faced with a choice: right or left. Into the pulmonary artery, to the capillaries, revitalized – breathed blood – onward, onward…

Barnes breathes: he inhales and exhales, all that invisible handiwork of God or nature or whatever lets you sleep at night. He exists: a man. A miracle. A mystery. 

The question on Sam’s tongue is, for now, how? How did this soldier survive?

Sam knows too many soldiers who didn’t: captured and killed, shot and killed, tortured and killed, exploded and killed, laughed and killed, cried and killed, burnt and killed. Blown to pieces and killed. Fallen out of the sky and killed. Right at his fingertips and killed.

Came home and killed: walked into traffic, strung up a noose, loaded a handgun and killed, jumped off a bridge and killed.

Sam can’t help it: he looks at Barnes and he sees them. He fought with those men and he buried those men and he tried to help the ones who made it out, but he buried some of those just the same.  So when they ask him, “What do you think of Barnes?” and when they say, “In your opinion – I mean, you’ve worked with soldiers, with prisoners of war, with vets,” he says, “He’s not my patient.”

And the others look at him like he’s crazy, like he’s cruel, to cordon off his life like that. To keep pieces of himself for himself. Because they look at him and they see a list of skills to be mined, and it’s only to be expected. They are always either walking around with their armor on (Stark, Natasha, Barton) or like a live grenade about to blow (Banner, Steve). Either way they are always combat ready, and everything – every skill, every experience, every nightmare – is fair game.

So when Sam says, “He’s not my patient,” he really means: you get my wings and my blood and all the fight I can muster, but you can’t have this. You can’t make an engine out of my mind: I am not a wellspring and you cannot take a pickaxe to my heart, this is not a resource to be exploited because I am not endless. I do not exist to pour myself out for you. 

In another word: it is a boundary, and he holds it tight.

  

Steve pushes the doctors to declare Barnes unfit for combat – and let’s be honest with each other, what they do, it’s combat, and this is war, it always has been – but they just shake their heads (another many-headed beast?) and say things like, “In our professional opinion, Sergeant Barnes is fit to serve…” 

This makes Steve want to throw things, and Sam knows this because as soon as he thinks no one will hear the crash, he does.

Sam has his own doubts. After the medical team’s report, he asks Stark about the doctors, because from the start they felt dangerously familiar. Something about the way phrases like “fit to serve” rolled off their tongues. Those close-cropped haircuts and the way they came to attention, like soldiers. The way they talk about Barnes like they’re running triage, like they’ve got a battlefield in mind.

> Primum non nocere. The doctor’s oath. Sam knows that you bend it, under pressure: sometimes, you’ve got to do a little harm to show some mercy. That word – _mercy_ – shares a root with another – _mercenary –_ and likewise they both possess a certain kind of brutality. Mercy, the act of showing compassion to someone (or something) upon which you could visit harm. The doctor’s mercy, then, lies in those sworn words: first, do no harm. Where does the mercenary’s lie?

“Where’d you find these guys,” Sam says.

“You know Angie’s List? That, except the one for top-secret, ultra-qualified, willing-to-work-outside-the-law medical professionals,” Stark replies.

“Right. Sure. So they’re basically saying that Barnes is ready to deploy, and – “

“This is bad news how exactly?”

“It’s not bad, I’m just – “

“Because what I’m hearing is that Sergeant Barnes is all patched up, which is a testament to his personal resilience and of course to the best medical care my money can buy and yet you’re making that face.”

“What face.”

“You know, the ‘something sure seems fishy and I’m gonna make it right!’ face. The Steve Rogers Face. You should give it back to him. He wears it better. ”

“I’m saying that there’s something weird about the way the doctors talk about Barnes. They’re always talking about getting him ‘field ready,’ which makes no sense. Because for starters, this guy has spent the last seventy years either killing people or on ice so there’s no way he’s ready to be in the field, and more to the point, I wasn’t aware we were asking him to be.”

“Maybe you hadn’t noticed, but HYDRA is very much still a threat and some of us are trying to make sure that we’re equipped to handle it,” Stark says sharply.

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You are,” Stark says. “And?” 

“And, I’m just saying that it doesn’t make sense and I’m wondering who’s calling the shots. Because even if Barnes is physically fit, there’s no way he’s psychologically stable. And sending somebody who isn’t ready out into the field is a surefire way to get a whole bunch of us killed.” 

“Is this your professional opinion?” Stark says, twisting scare quotes around those last words.

“No,” Sam answers carefully. “It probably would be, but he’s not my patient.”

(In another word: stalemate.)

“Exactly,” Stark says, with his Cheshire cat’s grin.

 

* * *

 

The first time she explains the plan, he laughs. The second time, he realizes that she isn’t joking. 

Sam, Steve, Barton, Banner, and Stark are all staring down the length of that long conference table, their eyes fixed on Natasha.

“No one is gonna buy this,” Sam says, shaking his head.

Natasha rolls her eyes. “You lack imagination.” 

“Fine. Explain it again,” Sam sighs. “I mean, we all know that I’m gonna do it, but I’ve got to hear this nonsense one more time. I want to make sure my ears are working properly, unlike my buddy’s over there.”  
  
Barton smirks and signs a quick _fuck you_ to that.

Natasha launches into the plan for the third time. It goes something like this. 

 

HYDRA is dead but it also isn’t dead: all that shit about cutting off one head and two growing back turns out to be true. SHIELD went down with the Triskelion, and by the time they put out the fire, all that was left of Howard Stark’s dream and Peggy Carter’s promise was a burnt out shell. Twisting metal and scarred skin and a poison in the veins.

At first, everyone assumed that Maria Hill would take charge, except Stark, who was entirely unsurprised when Natasha started assigning missions and keeping (more) secrets.

“If the eyepatch fits,” Stark had said.

Natasha had just smiled, as ever.

In the aftermath, there was work to do, although not the sort of work that the Avengers usually took up. But after you save the world, somebody has to rebuild it. There were rogue HYDRA cells to track, SHIELD survivors to interrogate, Congressmen to rebuke. A city to restore. The recovery efforts in DC kept Sam occupied during those first few weeks, as the dust settled and the blood dried.

Stark blusters, tossing himself into the spotlight vacated by Natasha’s turned back on the Senate floor. He plays the magician’s game of misdirection. Meanwhile, Natasha assembles a team of those she can trust – it’s a small group, as you’d expect – and they scour the four corners of the world, in search of rot.

Steve waits. For the first time in any century, he finds himself with nothing to do but wait, and watch, and hope. His fingers itch and his skin crawls and he fidgets. 

Barnes sleeps and stares. The doctors poke and prod. And then, one day, they decide: “Fit to serve.”

 

In Nevada, it festers. The rot. Beneath three thousand feet of dirt and rock, bleached by the sun, HYDRA’s supposedly got an archive as long as a football field. All the records deemed too sensitive for a hackable network, all the stories too shadowed to chance the light, sunk beneath a mountain meant for nuclear waste.

They hear about Nevada from a defector in Durban. (Of course, it isn’t strictly correct to call him a ‘defector,’ but that’s what they call the HYDRA captives who dare to speak. It’s a habit they’ve all gotten into, although no one is sure where or when it started.) They pull his cyanide tooth out with a pair of rusty pliers and he spits up blood on Barton’s shoes. At first he speaks and they do not understand and then he laughs, and then he coughs again. “American,” he says, blood in his teeth.

“Close enough,” Natasha replies.

“The other ones were American too,” he says. “You’re always American.”

The defector – they never learn his name, but then again, they never ask – tells them about Nevada. They have heard about this place before, of course; remember, this is not the first defector. This is not the first man to spit “ _American_ ” at their feet. But he is the first to put a location to the place that the defectors call _the Pit_. 

Hill asks their routine questions and they get their answers and his blood pools on the concrete. Hill nods quickly at Barton and she catches Natasha’s eye. It’s time to move on.

They take a vote and it’s two to one so they drop him off at the city hospital.

 

So, Nevada is the plan. They’ve learned the hard way that these HYDRA command centers are equipped with a “burn it all down button,” and they need the place intact. Because according to their intel, there are documents in the Pit that make Natasha’s data dump look about as terrifying as a bedtime story.

They’re going to Trojan Horse the base, analog-style, and Barnes is their in. As far as HYDRA is concerned, the Winter Soldier followed protocol and went to ground after DC. Or at least, that’s what they’re counting on, because there’s no real way to know what HYDRA knows. As Sam says, that’s kind of the whole point of this shitshow of a mission.

Their cover story starts like the truth: the Winter Soldier survives another fall. But instead of pulling his target from the water, instead of saving Captain America, instead of haunting DC like a ghost with a conscience, instead of showing up at Steve Rogers’ door like a bad penny with a body count, the Winter Soldier follows protocol.

“There is a HYDRA safehouse in West Virginia,” Natasha explains. “When he reports back to his handler in Nevada, he will say that this is where he went, to await orders. To assess the damage.” 

“And then Wilson just stumbles across this super-secret HYDRA hideout,” Stark says.

“Barnes would not have known that the safehouse had been compromised,” Natasha continues, indefatigable. “He would have gone off-the-grid until he could assess who was left standing. When Sam found him, he would have to act quickly and on his own. He would revert to a standard operating procedure.”

“Nobody ever taught me that one,” Sam retorts.

“You clearly haven’t had the right kind of teacher,” Stark leers.

“I promise, this is not the part of the plan you need to worry about,” Natasha says. “Now, we need to talk about the extraction protocol…”

As Natasha outlines her multi-stage procedure for getting them the hell out of dodge, Sam’s gaze drifts over to Steve. He hasn’t really talked to Steve about all of this, not yet. He knows he needs to, and soon, because Steve brims with an uneasy mixture of gratitude (“You don’t have to do this, Sam,”) and guilt (the unspoken “Why you, and not me?”) and it’s sucking the air out of the room.

“You know, eventually we’re going to have to tell the world that we’ve got Captain America’s best guy back from the Reds,” Stark observes idly. 

Steve instantly bristles, ready to protest.

“We’re not there yet,” Natasha says warningly. 

“I’m just saying,” Stark says, drawing out his syllables. 

“We’re not handing him over to be punished for crimes he didn’t willingly commit,” Steve says, clearly struggling to swallow his panic. 

“Eventually, though,” Stark muses.

“He gets a pardon!” Steve says angrily, and not a little petulantly.

“Of course we’re going to protect him, Steve,” Natasha says, sparing a truly frightening glare for Stark.

“Never said we wouldn’t,” Stark says, shrugging.

Sometimes, Sam wonders what Steve thought was going to happen, if they had followed through on their original plan, if they’d had gone hunting Barnes after DC, if they’d managed to bring him home. Steve had to know how that story ended: Barnes would have to be held accountable, in some way, for the Winter Soldier. People would want answers – they’d want blood, to tell you the truth – and someone would have to give it. The world would forever see the Winter Soldier when they looked at whatever survived HYDRA’s programming. Steve seemed to be the only one capable of separating the man from the monster, the myth – and well, that made sense, because Steve was the only one left who’d known the man, really. 

It seemed clear enough to Sam that Barnes had spent decades being systematically erased; the Winter Soldier had been built, not born. But Sam hadn’t been so sure what would be left of James Buchanan Barnes when they caught up to the Winter Soldier, despite all Steve’s certainties. And while Barnes might not deserve a murderer’s sentence, the Winter Soldier surely did.

A persistent voice in the back of Sam’s head had whispered, _Let sleeping dogs lie_. But he knew that Steve couldn’t do that, and he knew that if he’d been faced with the chance to save Riley from the fall, he’d’ve never looked back.

So when Sam had said to Steve, “You’re going after him,” he’d known that it wasn’t a question. And when Steve replied, “You don’t have to come,” Sam knew that was true, too. He didn’t have to go. This wasn’t his fight, and Barnes wasn’t his guy, but –

He just shook his head and said, “I know. When do we start?”

 

Of course, Sam and Steve never did end up chasing Barnes across the world because he just showed up at Steve’s doorstep like a damn present. Once he’d remembered to breathe, Steve had called Sam, Natasha, and Stark, in that order. Actually, Sam only merited a string of text messages: _BUCKY FOUND ME_ , quickly followed by _NOT DEAD_ , and then ten minutes later, _REMEMBERS ME IT’S OK_. (Somebody, Sam had thought, really needed to teach Rogers how to not give a guy a fucking heart attack. And maybe how to turn off caps lock.)

Natasha apparently had to talk Steve out of grabbing Barnes and making a run for it, reminding him that a) he was one of the most recognizable people in the country, b) HYDRA was still a thing, and c) he had an acquaintance with bottomless pockets who owned a fortress disguised as a skyscraper.

“Look, Tony, we need somewhere that’s safe and we need time to figure out what we do next and we can’t go to the government not after SHIELD and Fury’s gone and I can’t let them take him we’ve got to hide him at least until we figure out what – “ 

“Breathe, Rogers, jeez. I’ve seen your medical files, I know you haven’t evolved beyond oxygen – “

“Not _now_ , Tony. Can you take something seriously, for once in your damn life – “

“Okay, easy, easy. There’s no need to use such foul language, Cap. I’ve already dispatched an extraction team to Queens. (Steve couldn’t bear to go back to Brooklyn.) They’ll be the ones in the big black SUVs with the tinted windows and the suspiciously muscular drivers. Get down to the boiler room on the south side and wait. We’ll deal with the rest once you’re in.”

With SHIELD laid bare, it wasn’t exactly clear who was in charge of deprogramming a brainwashed, time-traveling assassin. That’s where they came in: the Avengers, the self-appointed God complex of the twenty-first century. They couldn’t handle Barnes over to Congress, or to another government acronym; there was no way to guarantee that they weren’t dropping the Winter Soldier back on HYDRA’s lap. (Steve also went near-nuclear anytime it was even vaguely suggested, so that pretty much settled that.)

And, if we’re being honest, they knew that going public about the Winter Soldier’s return would incite some not-entirely-unreasonable demands for justice, for a trial, for a traitor’s execution. All of which would raise more-than-a-few questions that they weren’t really prepared to answer. Steve was never going to let that happen – they were never going to let that happen – and so it became clear that they’d have to deal with Barnes in-house.

Natasha promised that Barnes’ return would remain classified, strictly need-to-know, although she never said who needed to know. Stark promised that he’d shield them from prying eyes, which was achieved through a combination of state-of-the-art security tech and some attention-grabbing, highly publicized antics across Manhattan. 

Later, Sam would wonder how (and why) all of that went down the way it did, and who stood to gain from the quiet return of Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, but at the time, those promises were the only thing keeping Steve Rogers (relatively) sane and in New York, and that was all Sam needed to know. 

 

Anyways. Back to the story they’re cooking up for HYDRA, in which Steve and Sam really did set out in search of the Winter Soldier and it all went predictably to hell. They split up, Sam heading south and Steve combing California for a start, tracking down a rumor of a rumor. Sam stumbles into something in the mountains of West Virginia, and when the Winter Soldier sees Sam Wilson, it sees an opportunity. Sam Wilson, the man who flies with the Avengers. Sam Wilson, the man who fights with the target, codename Captain America. There are files on this man. He could be useful to the Winter Soldier.

Natasha calls this part of the plan _the seduction_ , which makes Sam roll his eyes.

“You would not be the first to fall for his charms,” she smirks.

“Excuse me,” Sam says.

“He can be very persuasive,” Natasha replies.

Sam is relatively certain that he could, if put to the test, resist the charms of a ninety-year-old dude with a metal arm, but he doesn’t push the point.

Natasha continues: “He would contrive circumstances to keep you in the cabin. He would likely sustain a minor but immobilizing injury, engineered during your initial scuffle. There would be no telecommunications at the safehouse – all signals dead, no way to communicate with your support team. You would be forced to stay in the cabin until he was ambulatory.”

“Yeah, except if that had happened, I’d just pick him up and walk him off the damn mountain,” Sam says.

Barton signs, “You’d make it five feet before your bird arms gave out." 

“Do you want to test that theory? Because I will take you out. Me, you, the gym, let’s go,” Sam says, grinning.

“Settle down, boys,” Natasha says. “We are playing to HYDRA’s ideology, which is predicated on their own supremacy. They will find it easy, even preferable, to believe that you were outsmarted by their asset. Next, he will plant doubt in your mind. Close quarters, the constructed intimacy of caring for his wounds. He will cause you to question who you are really fighting for. He will ask if you can be certain of our protection. He will suggest that you are the likely scapegoat, if we have need of one.”

“After all,” Stark interjects, his lips stretching over too-white teeth, “you’re the newest member of our little gang.” He winks, disturbingly.

“He will prolong the injury, extending the period of mutual reliance,” Natasha continues. Her voice is flat, as if she is reciting from memory. Sam wonders if she’s run this play before. Natasha doesn’t talk much about her life before SHIELD, but he knows the bare bones. Department X, the Red Room, teenage assassins in ballet slippers.

“Once he feels that he has isolated you, alienated you – and you would be surprised, how quickly the doubt sets in, under such pressure – he will seduce you,” Natasha says. “He will convince you that your relationship is real, that you are both at risk, that you are safe with him. He will tell you that he is ready to defect, but that we are not to be trusted, and a part of you will believe it.”

“So basically,” Sam says. “This is some full-on, fucked-up rom-com shit.”

“I’d see that movie,” Stark says, leaning back in his chair with a grin.

Sam ignores Stark. “Okay, fine. But you’re still gonna have to walk me through how we get from R-rated in the backwoods all the way to Nevada.” 

“You get married,” Natasha says simply.

Sam sits up a little straighter. “We get _married_. Christ. Are you for real?”

“Why go to Nevada, though,” Banner interrupts for the first time. “It’d be just as easy to do it in Virginia. No waiting period.” 

“I love it when you chime in,” Stark says. “Really makes all of this feel like a team effort.”

“It’s Nevada because it has to be Nevada,” Natasha says, clearly irritated. “HYDRA will not pick this apart, not once they have their asset back and an Avenger to play with.”

Sam shudders, in spite of himself. “And once we’re there, Barnes is all, ‘HYDRA, I’m home!,’ and we just waltz on in?” 

Natasha smiles. “Something like that.”

“I cannot wait to see you try to sell Barnes on this,” Sam says, shaking his head.

 

Obviously, there are some plot holes. Some kinks to work out. But until they read Barnes in, they can’t really get into the specifics, and they can’t read Barnes in until Steve quits playing Martyr America.

“If he goes, I go,” Steve says for what feels like the millionth time, and there is a collective groan. 

“No,” Natasha says. She does not seem inclined to elaborate.

After Natasha first explained the plan, they spent two days debating whether or not they should ask Barnes to go back into the field. Natasha, Stark, and Barton were in the yes camp; Banner and Sam kept quiet; Steve objected vehemently, and in one memorable conversation, with some pretty colorful profanity. That morning, it seemed like Steve had surrendered the point, or at least opened up to the idea, but he’s pushing a new agenda now: he wants to be the one to go with Barnes. 

Personally, Sam isn’t too thrilled about the prospect of playing the hoodwinked husband-to-be, but he figures Natasha had a good reason to nominate him for the job. It’s also painfully evident that Steve is far too close to the situation to handle the op.

Stark shakes his head. “That’s what I thought at first. You know I’ve been skeptical from the start. But as much as I, along with the rest of the Internet, would love to see you and your formerly frozen fella get it on, in high-definition if there’s a god, I’ve come around to Nat’s position.”

Natasha grinds her teeth audibly and Barton snickers.

“We send you, and they know they’re about to get fucked up,” Stark continues. “We send Wilson, and maybe they buy it.”

“But he’s not ready,” Steve says. He sounds like his will to live died back in 1945. “I don’t think he should ever have to be ready. He’s served our country, and then some. But if it’s got to be him, then it oughta be me. That’s our – that’s the deal.”

Even Stark softens at that. “I know, Cap. But this is it. This is what we’ve got to work with. If I could jump in a suit and do it myself, I would in a heartbeat. But I’ve run the probably models into the ground, and as much as it really pisses me off, Natasha’s right.”

“If we make him do this, we’re no better than HYDRA. They told him it was ‘for the greater good,’ too. He’s spent his entire life killing people just because someone told him to shoot, and I won’t – “ Steve says, his voice rising.

Natasha laughs sharply and the sound clangs in the air like discordant bells. “God, Rogers,” she interrupts. “For someone who’s supposed to be so smart, you are an absolute idiot.” 

Steve opens his mouth to protest, but Natasha is too quick.  “You cannot seriously think – that we are here by choice. That any of this is a choice. That any of us had a choice.” 

“Nat, I didn’t mean – I know that you didn’t choose what happened to you,” Steve says hotly. “And that’s why you, of all people should understand – “

“I do understand. That’s my point! None of us chose this. You, you think that you did – but did you know what the serum would do to you? Did you choose that? Did you choose any of it?”

Steve is silent and seething, but he’s lost the argument and he knows it.

Stark clears his throat and says, “Natasha, I think Cap gets your point, so maybe we could take it down a notch?”

Steve and Natasha hold each other’s gaze, and for a moment, it seems like Steve will bite back. But he exhales and leans back from the table, his shoulders falling.

“Fine,” he says slowly. “I’ll still have to talk to the doctors. But if they say yes – _if_ – I’ll talk to him. I’ll ask him what he thinks.”

  

One thing that Natasha does not mention: the price of Barnes’ life may well be the recovery of those files, which contain everything there is to know about the Winter Soldier. The Winter Soldier project had been among those HYDRA initiatives deemed too high value for anything but a lead-lined fortress buried beneath the desert sun. Without those documents, there is no real proof that the Winter Soldier had been held against its will for almost a century; there is no proof that James Buchanan Barnes survives.

And that’s why, for all his complaining, for all his what-ifs, Sam is going to Nevada. Because if you’d seen the look on Steve Rogers’ face when he realized that those records are all that stands between Barnes and a traitor’s death, you’d have gone to the world’s end if he asked.

So when Steve said, “You don’t have to go,” Sam could only reply, “I know. When do I start?”

 

* * *

 

 

It’s a Tuesday afternoon and Stark has been talking for forty-seven minutes straight, which is enough to make anyone go a little stir-crazy. Steve’s gaze keeps bouncing between his watch and the door, and Sam figures he’s due to implode any second now.

“…and that’s why I had to design this sexy little thermophotovoltaic battery substitute!” Tony says triumphantly.

Banner opens his mouth, undoubtedly to ask a question that will set Stark off on another twenty-minute tangent but Steve leaps to his feet first.

“That’s great, Tony,” he says in a rush. “I just – I’ll be right back. I’ll catch up later.”

Barton tracks Steve’s exit with a look of wistful envy.

“Did Captain America need a bathroom break?” Tony says. “Because he didn’t ask for the hall pass, which means he’s going straight to time-out as soon as he gets back.”

“Sergeant Barnes is undergoing a minor surgical procedure this afternoon,” JARVIS supplies helpfully. “It appears that Captain Rogers is headed toward the medical wing." 

Stark looks vaguely hurt at this information, but quickly shrugs it off. “Well, fine. He just won’t get to hear about my long-range – “

“Actually, I’ve got a question,” Sam interrupts. “While Steve is, uh. Busy.”

Sam’s seen this same question in Steve’s eyes, and it’s been on the tip of his tongue since Natasha first asked him to sign on for the op. Even as Steve thanked him (profusely, apologetically, miserably) for agreeing to go with Barnes, Sam could see the frustration on his brow. Why you? What can you do – what can you offer – what can you protect him from – that I can’t?

Natasha’s eyebrows twist upward and Stark meets her gaze carefully before showily ceding the floor to Sam. 

He asks it simply. “Why me? Why not Steve, or hell – what about you? You’d sell the whole ‘the Winter Seducer won me over’ angle better than I ever will.” 

She smiles briefly. “Of course I would.”

“So,” Sam says, drawing out the vowel.

“So,” she mirrors.

Stark, never quiet for long, chimes in. “I think Big Bird’s got a point, Nat. I mean, I’d get it if we were sending him and Cap out west, because they’ve totally got the ‘star-crossed lovers’ shtick down. And I've come around to keeping Cap on ice a little longer. But if we’re not working that angle, why have Barnes play gay?”

“That wasn’t exactly my point,” Sam says quickly, although it sort of is.

“We’re not,” Natasha says. “Didn’t you read the file?" 

Natasha had prepared dossiers on both Barnes and Sam, and distributed copies to everyone on the logistics team. Sam had made it through the first ten or so pages of the Barnes file before putting it aside queasily.

“The file on Barnes was, how do I put this delicately,” Stark says. “Not exactly bedtime reading material? Unless you’re planning to down a glass of warm milk and blow your brains out.”

Barton’s face cracks into a grin, which earns him a steely glare from Natasha. He rolls his eyes right back.

“I read it,” Banner says quietly.

“Of course you did,” Stark sneers fondly. 

“I started,” Sam says carefully. “It’s…”

“Dark. Dense. Depressing,” Stark supplies. “I could keep going. ‘Depraved’ comes to mind.”

“Of course it is, what did you expect?” Natasha says. “But fine. Since none of you read the file – “

“Except for Bruce,” Stark says.

“Since the rest of you didn’t read the file,” Natasha says with evident exasperation. “I imagine it will come as a slight shock when I tell you that Sergeant Barnes is, in fact, gay, and that this is something HYDRA has known since the eighties.”

A silence hangs and Stark is predictably the first to break it, twisting sharply in his chair to face Banner. “You knew and you didn’t tell me?” 

“I assumed you had read the file,” Banner replies.

“You know what they say about people who assume things,” Stark retorts.

Meanwhile, Barton rapidly signs something that Sam can’t follow, but to which Natasha responds in kind, a smile slipping into her eyes. When she turns back to look at Sam, it is gone.

“Okay,” he says. “It sounds like I have some reading to do.”

 

It was all there, in the fragments of a heavily redacted medical report dated 1986, on page ninety-three of the background file on Barnes’ life as the Winter Soldier. The careful translation from the Russian is signed NR. Sam’s eyes race over the page. 

> “…the Asset responded at an increased rate to homoerotic and homosexual stimuli, although further assessment in the field is required before advanced directives can be issued…” 
> 
> “…may necessitate changes in handler protocol to insure that the Asset is adequately maintained…”
> 
> “…in light of the U.S. panic over the so-called AIDS we recommend strategic utilization of the Asset’s predilections…”
> 
> “…do not at this time recommend inducing infection to test the Asset’s immunology but should it be considered at a later date, we suggest the following experimental protocol…”

The document went on to detail other possible uses for this new piece of information, emphasizing the importance of “maximizing the Asset’s use in the field,” before breaking off mid-sentence.

Once he finishes reading, Sam drops the packet to the floor as if he’s been burned and only just noticed the sear. 

He slips out of the little room he uses whenever he’s in New York, at Stark’s inexplicably vehement insistence, and he goes in search of Natasha. He finds her sharpening knives – so many knives, more knives than she could possibly use, it’s like the most disturbing form of occupational therapy he’s ever seen – in the empty office she’s apparently claimed as her own.

He abandons all pretense. “Does Steve know?”

She looks at him carefully and as usual, he can see nothing in her gaze. “Some things, Steve doesn’t need to know.” 

“Does he know,” Sam repeats. 

“No,” she replies. “I redacted his copy. Not that it matters. I don’t think he’s even opened the file.”

She pauses, her eyes scanning his face. He isn’t sure what she was looking for, but she seems satisfied. 

“There’s no reason for him to know. It isn’t relevant to the mission.”  
  
“It’s relevant to his _life_ ,” Sam replies.

“Maybe. Do you think you should be the one to tell him?” she counters. “Should I?”

Sam works his jaw but the words – yes, no, maybe, I don’t know but someone’s got to – sink in his throat.

And well, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?

 

* * *

 

When Steve asks the medical team if Barnes is cleared for Nevada, their answer comes as no surprise. (“In our opinion, the patient is combat-ready…”) They were always going to say yes.

All of this was inevitable. Barnes was always going to get them into that facility on the edge of the two deserts and Sam was always going to go with him and Steve was always going to ask Barnes to do it in the first place.

In another world, Barnes might never have shown up at Steve’s door with ash in his hair and a question on his lips. In another world – in another story – he might have washed up in Bucharest – or chased Steve to New York City, mission: protect – or become a ghost story all over again (well, who’s that writing?) – or woke up with someone else’s heart in his chest – or woke up to the shadow of a tree – or woke up to a lie, singing: it ain’t me, it ain’t me – or maybe he never went to sleep at all, maybe he just shattered like glass.

Maybe there are worlds in which there was never a Winter Soldier – in which Barnes died as he lived, a boy from Brooklyn who never saw the other side of the century – in which they were entirely different people, young and in love in Brooklyn – in which they are not the heroes of the story – in which they do not have to be because there are no villains. Maybe there are worlds in which there has never been a need for redemption, or revenge.

In this world, there is.

  

Sam still dreams about the day the Triskelion fell. He still dreams about that hospital room. He wakes up with a bitter taste on his tongue and a lump in his throat. He’ll text something innocuous - _have you seen trading places bc i’m thinking we do the reboot you were in the pictures back in the day right_ or _so did y’all actually play with marbles for fun i’ve always wondered about that_ or sometimes just _run today?_ – but really he means _you made it out alive, right? i didn't dream that, right?_  

Steve always responds, no matter what time it is. Sam wonders if he ever sleeps. 

Sam sleeps, but sometimes he wishes he couldn’t: the dreams are all nightmares and they smell like smoke and burnt flesh and they feel like flying, like falling, and he always wakes on impact.

A week after Sam jumped out of a burning building and prayed that someone would catch him, Barnes shows up at Steve’s apartment and says, “They said he was a soldier.”

“Yes,” Steve says. “You were.” 

 

Bucky had been back in New York for nearly two months when Steve sat down to tell him about the desert.

“So, what do you think?” Steve asks him.

It’s just the two of them; Sam is downstairs playing pool with Clint. **(** He’ll lose, badly.) Steve explains that HYDRA is dead but also isn’t dead, and this doesn’t seem to surprise Bucky at all. Steve shudders to wonder what it’d take to surprise Bucky these days.

“Buck?” Steve says into the dead air. Bucky stares out at the city skyline, unmoved by Steve’s words. “What’re you thinking?”

 Bucky grunts, and it is neither a _yes_ nor a _no_ ; it is an exhalation of air forced through the throat. Resignation bends his spine – or is that just the weight of his left arm? Either way, it breaks Steve’s resolve, and maybe his heart.

Steve breathes, unsteady. “It’s up to you. We can tell ‘em to just forget about it. Me and you, we can go somewhere else. We can get away from all this,” and Steve gestures around the room at the chrome and the LED lights and the trappings of Stark’s empire. His hand sweeps over the city skyline, as if to say, “ _This, too_.” 

Bucky stares into the middle distance and a memory unfurls in Steve’s mind. Bucky, twelve or so, sprawled in a shady corner of the public library, balancing a green volume on his knee. Dust particles dancing in a sunbeam. The memory so vivid, so clear, he can feel the itch of a sneeze. His eyes water against the dust. He’d hide the symptoms from Bucky, who would have insisted that they leave if he thought Steve was getting sick. But this, these lazy afternoons in the library, the calm, the quiet – this was a stolen scrap of peace, and those were few and far between.

They’d come to the library to hide from the summer sun; Steve would draw while Bucky read. At twelve, Bucky liked ghost stories best of all, although in a few summers, he'd be exclusively devouring stories about the future from the pulp magazines.

In his memory, Steve knows the name on the book’s spine – the same guy who wrote _Jungle Book_ , which they apparently made into a kid’s movie in the sixties. Bucky must’ve read that book a half dozen times that summer, and he spent most of July subjecting Steve to a recollected version of his favorite story.

Steve has never been one for ghost stories. But in the ripening darkness of a summer’s night, as he and Bucky lay loose-limbed on the rooftop, picking out stars and peeking at backlit windows, Bucky would begin with a grin that Steve couldn’t help but hear, then and now: 

“Four guys sat at a table playing some boring old card game. The thermometer said one-oh-one – we know all about that, don’t we, Steve? – and the room was so dark they couldn’t hardly see the cards. But they could see the whites in each other’s eyes, all bright in the moonlight.”

“C’mon, you know I don’t wanna hear this,” Steve would interrupt, covering his good ear. “Tell me something nice for once.”

“Don’t be such a priss,” Bucky would retort. “Now, like I was saying, it was real hot and real dark, just like tonight…” 

The story goes on. Four guys sitting ‘round a table, playing cards. One of them has nightmares whenever he falls to sleeping and he’s started to go mad with it. One of them gives him a sleeping mixture and unloads his gun and they leave him for a spell. A week later they find him dead, and there’s no explanation for it. 

That was always Bucky’s favorite part, and he relished the telling: “And when they saw him lying on the bed and he wasn’t waking up, they turned him over – and Steve, you just know it stunk like a butcher’s block in August, rotting dead in that heat – and his eyes were wide open, and – “

Steve would groan, and cover his ear again, but Bucky couldn’t be deterred. “Don’t you wanna know what they saw, Steve?”

“You know I don’t!”

“Eyes stuck open like he’d seen the Devil himself, like if you looked in ‘em, you’d see him too. Man had been scared to death by something otherworldly and you could see it in his eye like a picture.”

“That’s not right! You can’t see nothing in a dead man’s eye.”

“Just shows what you know, Steve. You ever seen a dead man’s eye, staring straight into nothing, like he’s looking at something you can’t see?” 

“Like you’ve ever!”

“I have too and you know it! That old drunk down at the docks last summer.”

Bucky was terribly proud of this and Steve would roll his eyes whenever he managed to bring it up, which was more often than strictly necessary. “What’d you see in his eye, then? The bottom of a bottle?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Bucky would reply, flashing his crooked grin. It was a simpler smile than it’d become later – none of the cocksure ease that would hang on Bucky like a mantle once he discovered how to charm a dame, and none of the bitterness that wore at its edges after he came back from Azzano. But for now, in the prism of Steve’s memory, it was as clear as the summer sky, and just as bright.

On those nights, they lay so close they could have touched, and sometimes they did, in that easy way of boys. A hand at the shoulder to steer you in the right direction and the whisper of two knees knocking, gentle-like. Fingers flicking at your cowlick and toes rough with dirt scrabbling on the field. Your head falling on his shoulder, your eyelashes tripping on the way to sleep. On those nights, in those days, during that summer, they touched without wanting and that made it all the easier to fall into a dreamless sleep. 

 

Since that summer in Brooklyn, Steve has seen plenty of dead men’s eyes – too many to count – and he’d learned that a smile is rarely just a smile.

He glances at Bucky and shivers slightly, even as the summer sun – as hot as he remembers, one of the few things that hasn’t changed – glares through the glass. Bucky stares straight into nothing, like he’s looking at something Steve can’t see.

Steve went to the old library once, after he’d first woken up, and checked out an armful of books. His old favorites, and Bucky’s too. He had read Kipling’s story himself for the first time, and like everything he’d read since the serum, the pages got stuck in his mind, clear as a picture.

Now, with Bucky just an arm’s length away and yet entirely out of reach, a line from that story swam into focus in his mind’s eye: _Is there any fear on earth that can turn a man into that likeness?_

Is there?

 

“Bucky,” he tries again, shaking off the ghosts. “Can you – can you just say something? Anything?” 

He sounds like a kid from Brooklyn again: a faint whine to his voice and an accent lost in time. Something tightens in his chest and it hurts to breathe. 

“Jeez, Rogers, quit being such a mook,” Bucky says. His voice is clear and accentless and he does not turn to look at Steve. His eyes hang fixed on a patch of horizon stretched taut between two skyscrapers.

Blood rushes Steve’s skin – that was Bucky, alright – _his Bucky_ – but he swallows his excitement whole and says, “Nice to hear from you, Barnes.”

Bucky says nothing, but it seems like he’s waiting on Steve to say something more, and so he does.

“What do you think about the plan? Because you don’t have to go through with it, if you’re not – if you just don’t wanna. You don’t even need a reason, honest. We’d come up with something to tell them.”

As easy as that, it’s just like it was: Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, two Brooklyn kids against the world. Us versus them: battle lines redrawn in a familiar fashion.

When Bucky speaks, his voice is still unmarked by time or shore, but Steve knows the words by heart. He's heard them before.

“I’m thinking that if you’re here, asking me to do something crazy, it's your only option.”

Steve breathes. “It looks like it might be. I’m not gonna tell a lie to you. But you don’t have to do it and I won’t let them make you.”

“They think it’ll work?”

“They hope it will, and we’ve got – “ 

“Fine.” A bird lands on a nearby spire, wings outstretched. The sun catches on its feathers.

“I’m real glad you want to help, but – it’s a lot to ask. We should talk about it some more. I knew you’d want to help us take them down, you’ve always been that kinda guy, but – “

Before he could finish, Bucky stood and the sun fell further still. As it drops out of view, the bird takes flight and Bucky walks away from the window. Steve’s sentence hangs unfinished in the air.

 

That night, Natasha returns from Agartala – she doesn’t want to talk about it – and that’s another HYDRA cell gone. Sam’s in a bad mood because he lost that game of pool – told you so – but also because he’s been in a bad mood ever since he first heard the word _Nevada_. Steve is tired because he is always tired. Being Captain America is exhausting, and being Steve Rogers is even worse.

“He sounded – like himself, but also…” Steve breaks off. 

“Not himself,” Natasha suggests.

“Well, yeah,” Steve says. “But – “

Sam interrupts. “He talked, full-on sentences and everything? And he called you a…a mook?” 

“Yeah, it’s a – well, it’s not a very nice word,” Steve says.

“If you’re trying to play like you don’t know what it means because it’s ‘not a very nice word,’ I’ll walk right out of here. I swear, Rogers. You know that ‘I’m Captain America, I have never had an impure thought!’ shit doesn’t fly with me.”

Natasha’s lips twitch. “Works on Tony, though. You should hear him talk about how wholesome you are, Steve.”

Steve winces. “See, you say ‘wholesome’ like it means the exact opposite, and I don’t really want to know anything more about that. And ‘mook’ just means somebody stupid, not worth your time. Self-involved.”

“So your long-lost, barely-says-a-word best friend called you an asshole, basically,” Sam says. He doesn’t bother to suppress a laugh.

“Yes,” Steve sighs. “It was a very Bucky thing to do. But he just sounded like – like JARVIS, honestly. Sort of robotic?”

“I will take that as a compliment, sir,” JARVIS whirs from the ceiling.

Natasha turns her face upward. “JARVIS, go away, please.”

“Of course, Ms. Romanov.” The air goes quiet.

“That thing _likes_ you,” Sam says.

“Of course it does,” Natasha replies, like there was nothing more natural in the world than an AI having a crush on her. Although, knowing Stark, that functionality was probably hard-wired.  

She turns back to Steve, her face serious. “Listen. He is not the same person you knew. How could he be? He had to become what he is now in order to survive. But he is talking to you, he chose to talk to you, and he said he wants to do this. So it can be done.”

“It didn’t sound like he wanted to,” Steve says. “More like…he wasn’t surprised that I was asking him to go off and risk his life. Like he’s gotten those orders before.” 

“I don’t know, Steve,” Natasha says, a little more gently. “But I can tell you that no one ever asked the Winter Soldier how he felt about a mission. No one gave him a choice.” 

Sam nods. “You kept saying that the whole point was to let him decide, and he did. So we should respect that, right?”

“Right,” Steve says, as if he is testing out the notion. “I guess.”

“We will brief him on the rest tomorrow,” Natasha says.

Sam grins. “Which means I’ve got to start working on my proposal. Wanna help me out, Steve? What’s a guy like Barnes looking for in a husband these days?”

Steve laughs slightly, in spite of himself.

 

* * *

 

“So, have you heard? Cap’s bad-ass assassin buddy is suiting up, he’s joining the team and they’re going to Vegas this week – leaving me just enough time to work on my ‘what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’ joke. Which is good, because I’m having a little problem with the timing, which is unusual for me, ask anyone – no really, you can ask just about anyone – “

Tony lets the socket wrench fly, and the sharp crack of metal on concrete punctuates the end of his sentence. He admires the newly acquired dent in the wall, and turns back to the toolbox.

“Ha, ha,” Bruce says flatly, in that particular way of his that conveys (to Tony, at least) a certain modicum of genuine amusement, which is really all you’re going to get from Bruce, even on a good day. Tony appreciates a challenge.

“I wish Rhodey was here, at least he appreciates my sparkling wit.” 

“He really doesn’t,” Bruce replies drily.

“I knew you two talked about me when I’m not around!”

“Oh, yeah. We’ve got a support group going. The Tony Stark Survivors Society.”

“I hate it when you think you’re funny. Because you’re not. Just so we’re clear.”

Bruce rolls his eyes.

“Anyways,” Tony says, over-articulating each syllable. “What do you make of him?” 

He hurls a screwdriver into the ceiling and ducks out of the way as it plummets toward the floor. He turns expectantly, half-waiting for an answer to his question but mostly expecting a crack about gravity remaining constant.

Bruce doesn’t take the bait. “Barnes?”

“Yes, Barnes, obviously. Come on, man. We have talked about this. The whole answering a question with a question thing is probably very zen and all but it means I have to repeat myself, which I do not enjoy, at all. And it also means that we have to have this conversation again, which I do not enjoy. See above re: repeating myself.”

A hammer whizzes by Bruce, colliding with a half-built robot and throwing off a few dismal sparks. The metallic _clang_ echoes.

“Please don’t throw things at me,” Bruce says. “The other guy doesn’t like it. In fact, I don’t like it.”

“I know,” Tony says, picking up a pair of needle-nose pliers.

Bruce sighs. “I didn’t say anything this morning because I don’t have anything to say. I know that concept is entirely foreign to you, but some of us don’t feel the need to run off at the mouth every five minutes.”

“Bruce, I may be made of metal most of the time, but I’ve got feelings and you’re hurting them. Come on. And I noticed your characteristically inscrutable silence this morning, it was kind of the Hulk in the room, so to speak. But because I know you, I happen to know that generally indicates the presence of an opinion, not the absence. So. I repeat myself. Again. Which, _again_ , I do not like doing. What do you think about Barnes?”

The pliers cartwheel through the air, aimed again at Bruce, but this time, he catches them in his left hand. Tony swallows an unfinished joke – something about the benefits of meditation, catching flies out of the air, etc. – and waits for Bruce to respond.

“I think it’s been a long time since Barnes made a choice for himself, and maybe that means he’s not in a place where he even can make a choice like the one we put to him. Maybe that’s because he’s gotten so used to be told what to do, he can’t recognize a choice when it’s offered to him. Maybe that’s because we weren’t giving him much of a choice at all. Or maybe he’s not making the choice, and if that’s the case, it’s probably something to worry about.”

Bruce presses the pliers’ twin cutting edges into the calluses of his palm. Tony files the gesture away for later analysis; it nags at his memory.

“So,” Tony prompts. “You’re worried that he’s not the one pulling the trigger.”

“Maybe,” Bruce says.

“It’d be helpful if Sergeant Barnes, oh I don’t know, went all green at the gills when he lost control or whatever,” Tony says, turning back towards a screen with swirling diagrams, leaning in close to read the schematics.

“Sure would,” Bruce agrees. He sets the pliers down carefully.

 

* * *

 

It takes the better part of the day to brief Barnes on the specifics of the plan, which they’re calling Operation WinterFalcon. (Barton came up with the name, but Sam’s pretty sure he got it from the Internet. Barton loves the Internet.)

Barnes listens carefully and asks a few concise questions, but mostly he sits watchfully as Natasha outlines the mission parameters. Steve had promised (himself, his God) that he’d stay quiet during the briefing, and he white-knuckles it. And for his part, Sam watches Barnes.

Barton tries to convince Barnes that he should add a crossbow to his arsenal; Barnes doesn’t bite. Natasha and Stark bicker in half-finished sentences, seemingly forgetting that they aren’t alone. Sam tries to catch Steve’s eye. He fails.

After lunch, Banner continues his briefing on the radioactive properties of the Pit. A map of Nye County is projected on the holographic screen. “From the SHIELD files Natasha leaked last month, we have learned that HYDRA controlled what was publicly known as the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository essentially from the start of the project. Adjacent to the Nevada Test Site, the site was on a list of potential nuclear waste disposal locations as early as 1975, which is likely when HYDRA took notice of it…”

The story unspools, and it is a familiar one, this unraveling of history to reveal HYDRA at its heart. HYDRA had been stymied by various political currents, but their intent is clear: they’d wanted the project to go forward, because what could possibly provide better protection for their secrets than the United States of America’s radioactive garbage?

And while the official project had been been abandoned – a political minefield for the then-president – HYDRA had its own uses for the site. In addition to burying their secrets, they made use of the facility for its intended purpose; after all, you’ve got to imagine that HYDRA produced a fair amount of nuclear waste in its day. 

“So, while this part of the facility appears to be unoccupied,” Banner says, circling one of the topmost layers on the site schematics. “We expect that you’ll find the lower levels in full use. There’s an active repository, of course, and the archive is here, but based on the energy signatures we’ve assessed in the last week, there is likely some kind of reactor on this level, although its signature is really quite unusual…”

Sam feels his eyes glaze over slightly, and just as he starts to drift off, Steve jumps to his feet.

“I should be the one going with him,” he says forcefully and to no one in particular. Banner’s laser pointer jumps at the sudden sound.

Sam catches the flicker of frustration on Natasha’s face, which she quickly smoothes away. She opens her mouth – no doubt to give a version of the same speech she’d been giving Steve all week – but Barnes beats her to the punch.

“No,” he says, and the room goes still. 

“What do you mean, ‘no,’” Steve says incredulously. “You don’t – you don’t want me to come with you?”

“No,” Barnes repeats. 

“Buck – why?” Steve asks, his voice thin. The others exchange furtive looks and generally try to fade into the carpet; even Stark holds his tongue.

“Your involvement would jeopardize the mission,” Barnes says dispassionately.

“No, I – what are you talking about? Are you worried about me getting hurt, because you don’t have to do that anymore. I can take care of myself.”

“No.”

“Then what?” 

“You would jeopardize the mission,” he says again. “You wouldn’t prioritize target acquisition.”

Steve goes red at the collar. “Are you saying that I can’t hack it, because I swear, Barnes. I’m not a kid anymore and I’ve been doing this just as long as you have and I’m – I’m damn good at it.”

Sam thinks that this isn’t, strictly speaking, true. Sometimes Steve seems to forget that Barnes’ been topside for years, that he didn’t spend those decades in permafrost, that he’s seen more than Steve can imagine. It’s like Steve just can’t reconcile himself to the chasm that was the latter half of the twentieth century, and well, can you really blame him? 

Barnes, calm and detached, stares up at Steve, who towers over the conference table. Sam wants to disappear.

For a moment, Barnes doesn’t say anything at all. Steve’s hands shake slightly and Natasha tenses, ready to intervene. Sam can see Stark fiddling with something – a flash of red and gold – in his palm. Banner breathes through the strained air. When Barnes finally speaks, he addresses a spot above the door and something uncertainly human creeps into his voice. 

“Steve, you can’t go with me. If you go, and something happens to me, you’re not gonna – you’ll try and – “ he trails off.

“Would you like us to give you the room,” Natasha says.

“No – “ Steve begins.

“Yes,” Barnes finishes. 

They leave them to it. Later that afternoon, they regroup. Steve holds himself stiffly and Barnes is careful to never catch his searching eye, but they clearly reached some sort of pained agreement. Steve stops interrupting, and in fact, remains silent for the rest of the day.

 

For a week they fill glass-walled rooms with talk of strategy. They cover long tables with blueprints and roadmaps and when the sun rises they wake with _what-ifs_ on their tongues. What if the handler in Vegas doesn’t buy Barnes’ story. What if she’s long-gone or long-dead. What if they can’t get onto the mountain. What if the Pit has been shut down. What if it was never there. What if this is a trap. What if it isn’t.

Sam keeps some of his what-ifs to himself: What if the cops find them first (a black man, a long road, a white officer, a dark night). What if HYDRA finds them first, what if God finds them first, what if the earth swallows them up whole. What if this was all a mistake. What if Barnes isn’t _Bucky Barnes, kid from the old neighborhood, went off to the war and he never came back, it’s a crying shame, a damn shame_. What if Barnes is _asset, assassin, monster, traitor_. What if Barnes is the Winter Soldier and what if he isn’t. What if, what if.

What if Barnes loses what’s left of his mind (what is left of his mind?) and chokes Sam out in a dingy roadside motel and what if Sam loses his nerve. 

(Sam Wilson isn’t a coward but he isn’t a god, he isn’t a myth, he can’t come back from the other side, he can’t survive the century. Sam Wilson is a man and he doesn’t want to die without someone he can trust by his side.)

What if by some miracle, by some god, they make it into the Pit and they find the Devil himself.

What if they can’t signal for help and what if they can but no one comes to back them up. What if they are captured and no one comes to save them.

What if Sam is trapped on the ground – bound to the ground – buried in the ground. What if he has no wings. What if he cannot fly.

  

They spend that last week in Manhattan looking at each other. Banner and Stark look at each other like it is an experiment and they’re betting on the outcome. Clint watches them all from his perch, every wary and ready to disappear. Sam and Natasha look at each other looking at Steve, watching Steve, waiting on Steve, who is only ever looking at Barnes.

Barnes looks nowhere in particular. His gaze is focused, as if he alone can see into the space between the atoms, between the living and the dead, between reality and some far-flung shore, some stranger plane.

Sometimes, Sam looks at Barnes and thinks, “How am I supposed to look like I love you?”

Sometimes, Sam looks at Steve and thinks, “How long have you been looking at him like you just can’t help it?”

“And you’re sure that HYDRA’s gonna go for this,” Sam says skeptically.

“Look,” Barnes says sharply. “I had a mission in Ljubljana. Like this. I remember most of it. It works. Induced emotional attachment.”

“Classic Stockholm syndrome,” Barton signs.

“Fine,” Sam huffs. “So he seduces me, convinces me to leave behind my entire life, and we run off to Vegas to – “

“Get married,” Natasha finishes.

“This is ridiculous,” Sam says. “We can all agree on that, right?” 

“Oh, it’s totally ridiculous,” Stark says. “It’s like the world’s worst romantic comedy, but it’s so bad it’s good.”

  

They have to talk about it, him and Steve. It’s the elephant in the damn room and they both know it. Sam can’t go off to Nevada and marry Barnes, even if it’s for a cover, even if it’s not real, without talking to Steve about it. He knows this. He knows this, and yet they haven’t talked about it, and he’s leaving tomorrow, because damn. It’s hard. 

How do you start that conversation? What does it look like?

“I know why you can’t go and I know why Barnes doesn’t want you to go but I can’t tell you because I’m scared of the redhead and also I don’t know how to tell you and even so I can’t be the one to tell you something you don’t know about your best friend from nineteen-fucking-thirty and also why do you look at him like that and – “

“I’m scared, Steve, and I can’t tell you that because you’d look at me with those dumb eyes, and you’d say something nice and you’d be all reassuring and you’d say that you understand if I can’t do it, you know it’s too much to ask, but I know you, Steve. I know you. And underneath all that you’d be thinking, _I should be the one to go_ , and hell, maybe you’re right but – “

“You know that I’m only doing this for you, right? I am going to Nevada and I am marrying a guy who could kill me with a cup of fucking yogurt and a pipecleaner because you can’t do it, because if you do it, you’ll end up doing something stupid, like getting yourself killed for no good reason and I can’t fucking have that, because you can’t die, because I haven’t said – “

Enough.

There’s so much left to say and nothing left to say, so they don’t say much of anything at all. In the end, Sam just leaves, and Steve just lets him. And honestly, that feels pretty in-character.

 

* * *

 

_WASHINGTON, D.C._

_APRIL 2014_

 

Let’s back this up a little.

Congress was out for blood after DC but the Winter Soldier was still a ghost story. It was surprisingly easy to sit quiet on the return of Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, Missing-In-Action-Presumed-Dead. Looking back on it all, Sam will wonder if Stark and Natasha had known how this would play out, if they knew that they’d need Barnes for something later and if that’s why they agreed to hide him in the first place. At the time, it just made sense: no need to advertise that another Brooklyn boy had come home from the war seventy years late, especially when this one was wearing a red star.

The Winter Soldier is in the files that Natasha leaked, of course, but you’ve got to know where to look, and these days, people aren’t really looking for ghosts. There are enough monsters in plain sight.

And so Barnes went to live at Stark’s perpetually mid-reconstruction tower in Midtown, with its _A_ for _Avengers_. Stark arranged for his medical care and promised to hold the government at bay, should they ever come sniffing around. Steve gave up his apartment in D.C. and moved into the tower, which comes as no surprise.

Sam had taken an indefinite leave of absence from the VA because he had to go save the world, and that doesn’t really jive with a 9-to-5. And once various acronymmed government agencies took over the Triskelion clean-up, and there was nothing left for him to do, he found that he wasn’t ready to go back to _before._  

Once you’ve seen that kind of destruction, once you’ve held that kind of power, everything feels a little duller. You start to itch and your feet are restless and your heart races. Time stretches, endless and hollow. You only realize when the call comes that you’ve been waiting by the phone, waiting for it, waiting to hear, _We need you_. And you go. Because that’s the kind of person you are (or have become, or always were): you are the guy who jumps out of a plane and trusts the wind. You are the guy who flies into the fire.

The life Sam had built for himself – careful, sturdy, certain – went down with the helicarriers, and he wasn’t ready to dive back into the wreckage. Wasn’t ready to hunt for salvage, wasn’t ready to rebuild. 

He was ready to fly. 

So he rattles around the city and he runs along the Mall and he thinks about an impossible man with an impossible smile. He thinks about history and he thinks about fire and he thinks about all the people in the world that need saving. (There is always someone to save.) He thinks about the way the wind feels on his skin (euphoria, god’s own breath) and he thinks about how alive he felt on the day he said _yes_ to that impossible man. _Yes_ , I will save the world with you. _Yes_ , I will change my life for you. _Yes_ , I will follow you to the end of –

– the story. To the end of the story.

 

And so on a cool day in April, during the calm between the storms, Sam Wilson hops on a train to Manhattan and he shows up at Steve Roger’s door with a copy of _Trading Places._  He takes a breath, and grins, and says, “I’m about to change your life.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Any and all feedback is appreciated, cherished, etc. You can also find me [on Tumblr](http://ababelofprose.tumblr.com/), where I also keep up [massive MCU fic rec list](http://ababelofprose.tumblr.com/mcu-fic-rec).
> 
>  
> 
> **Sources and further reading:**
> 
>  
> 
> If you're confused by the title, check out the Wikipedia page for [Chekhov's gun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov%27s_gun). 
> 
> I've never played Endless Ocean, but I watched a lot more [gameplay videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrJqBAOBTXA) than was strictly necessary.
> 
> Here's the Wikipedia page for [Angie's List](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angie%27s_List), in case you were lucky enough to escape their near constant advertising in the aughts and/or are reading from outside the US.
> 
> The Yucca Mountain stuff is [real](http://www.yuccamountain.org/time.htm), up to an obvious point.
> 
> There are several references to other MCU fanfics in the section beginning "When Steve asks the medical team..." The stories referenced are, in order:
> 
> \- Captain America: Civil War (okay, this one isn't technically fanfiction)  
> \- [Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail](archiveofourown.org/series/195689) by owlet  
> \- [Ain't No Grave](http://archiveofourown.org/series/426577) by spitandvinegar  
> \- [Postcards From Golgotha](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3803623) by kariye  
> \- [amor fati](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2434637/chapters/5390879) by m_leigh  
> \- [Shoeless Joe and the Sunshine Kid](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2414678) by nimmieamee  
> \- [Ipseity](http://archiveofourown.org/series/118750) by SkyisGray  
> \- [Make a Thing Go Right](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4195266/chapters/9476418) by hansbekhart
> 
> The story that Steve recalls Bucky loving is Rudyard Kipling's "[At the End of the Passage](https://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/ghost-stories-kipling.html)." For more information on this idea that you could retrieve an image from a dead person's eye, see the Wikipedia page for [Optography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optography).
> 
> If you haven't seen _Trading Places_ , you're missing out.


End file.
